To Frank Derison life seemed a somewhat tame affair after he had broken off his engagement to Miss Rivers and had given his word to Mr. Avison that the billiard table of the "Crown and Cushion" should see him no more. Now that he had lost Hermia, he felt that he loved her far more than he had ever loved her before. He could not get her image out of his thoughts; her face haunted his dreams by night and came between him and his work by day. He had not even the satisfaction of knowing that he had made her unhappy. He might and did regret her, but he had no proof that she regretted him. Evidently she had told him no more than the truth, although he could not credit it at the time, when she said in her letter that she should hail the rupture of their engagement as a relief. The news of her engagement to Clement Hazeldine had not failed to reach his ears--it had been no hole-and-corner affair; more than once, in the pleasant spring evenings, he saw them walking out together, and he ground his teeth and raged inwardly as he watched them. Frank, however, was not without his compensations, although they were of a kind which he was not the one to value as many in his place would have done. He was made aware through his mother, who had her information from the elder Mr. Avison, that he was rising slowly but surely in his employer's estimation. It was Mrs. Derison's opinion, and doubtless she had good reasons for giving expression to it, that if only he were careful to keep on as he had begun, there was nothing to hinder him from attaining in the course of a few years to a partnership in the business. Ephraim Judd's death had been the means of giving him another step upward and another increase of salary. Already he stood next to Mr. Howes, who had succeeded Mr. Hazeldine as managing clerk.